Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of cabinets for rack mount, wall mount, floor mount and ceiling mount fiber optic installations that utilize both fiber optic splices, fiber optic couplers, and cartridge style housings for electronic and fiber connections.
Discussion of the Related Art
Cabinets for fiber optic connections and terminations are commonplace in the art of optical transmission systems, but as data networks become more complex, the need for efficiency in fiber optic cable management grows. Cabinets for modern fiber optic systems require capacity for more cable entry and exit routes, additional space for connection and termination equipment, better access for maintenance, new techniques for security, and advancements in protective features that prevent contamination and system degradation due to unwanted physical forces on the cables, particularly for ceiling mount applications.
Prior developments in fiber optic cable management have focused more heavily on cable features and relied less on cabinet advancements to maximize optical data transmission. Certain cabinet advancements of note, however, have included the addition of a swivel functionality to a cabinet that houses fiber optic interconnections (illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 7,546,018 (Hendrickson 2009)), as well as an angular pivoting function shown in FIG. 2C of U.S. Pat. No. 7,548,680 (Castonguay 2009). These prior kinds of installations do not necessarily support rack mount style connectivity installations and maintenance. Furthermore, prior designs fail to take into account the need for increased clearance that would be necessary in a rack or other enclosure in order to take advantage of the traditionally known swiveling or pivoting functions of the prior art.
Considerations of space are particularly relevant in the art of local area networks that are installed in offices or multi-dwelling housing developments, given the magnitude of the connections necessary to serve the users. These considerations are made more acute by the fact that fiber optic cable enclosures in multi-user environments are likely to be mounted in an overhead position, such as a drop ceiling structure. In particular, passive optical LANs often utilize a ceiling mount cabinet that is placed in a drop ceiling by replacing one half of a tile. This position for the installation and the particular requirements of local area networks in multi-user environments presents a need in the art of fiber optic cable cabinets for features that provide better and more convenient access to the fiber and cables, while providing system integrity and accuracy.